Keegan Kyle, Grant Smith and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analyzed more than 11,000 pothole fixes in the city of Milwaukee and found that the city repaired potholes at a slower rate in minority neighborhoods in the first half of the year. Using SPSS, the analysis found that minority areas on the north side were waiting significantly longer for repairs. Even major arterials in minority neighborhoods took longer to repair than problems in largely white residential neighborhoods. The reporters mapped all the pothole repairs from January through mid-July of this year and overlaid census tract data to find disparities.

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A report by Jim Getz of The Dallas Morning News looks at the impact of population growth on dam safety. The investigation “found that suburban sprawl has encroached on hundreds of dams in Texas that were once in remote locations – including dozens in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.” Development upstream from a dam increases runoff which may increase risks related to dam failure for those living downstream. ” According to a News analysis of state and federal dam data and Census figures, at least 554 of Texas’s roughly 5,800 low-hazard dams are now in areas where the population has more than doubled since 1990.”

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“A year after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in a generation brought calls for immediate repairs to other spans, two of every three of the busiest problem bridges in each state — carrying nearly 40 million vehicles a day — have had no work beyond regular maintenance,” report Robert Tanner, Steve Karnowski and Frank Bass of the Associated Press. Officials attribute the lack of progress to bureaucratic red tape, soaring construction costs, and budget shortfalls among other things.

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Marisol Bello of USA TODAY reported that billions of dollars will be needed to repair deficient bridges throughout the U.S. Twelve percent of the bridges throughout the U.S. currently rate as deficient. “It would cost $9.4 billion a year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies in the USA, according to the latest estimate, made in 2005, by the American Society of Civil Engineers.” The report includes a roll-over map listing the number of deficient bridges by state.

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